DuPont’s [DD] Kevlar is best known for providing the military with its troops with its life protecting ballistic fiber in body armor, but it’s moving into arenas from law enforcement to mining to extreme sports responding to market needs, a company official said.
Kevlar is pushing boundaries and challenging the conventional to transform the ordinary to the extraordinary,” Norris Brooks, North American Regional Marketing Leader, Life Protection, part of DuPont Protection Technology, said. “We’re helping protect people and critical assets worldwide.”
Photo: DuPont
Some of the market areas where Kevlar now is found that weren’t even thought of when it was first introduced in 1965 include safety and protection in extreme sports.
DuPont teamed up with Troy Lee Designs to create strong, lightweight protective clothing for free style mountain biker Cam Zink, who in August broke the Guinness World Record backflip wearing DuPont Kevlar protection.
Kevlar’s Dare Bigger ™ initiative opens a wide market for the lightweight, extremely strong fiber. Kevlar turns up in helmets, skis, snowboards, boats, mining belts, and tires, responding with solutions to customer needs worldwide.
DuPont works globally with industrial manufacturers, governments and people with problems to solve where Kevlar can help, Brooks said.
Kevlar now has an increasingly diverse portfolio to include conveyer belts for mining, hoses, automotive components, and protective sheaths for fiber optic cables. Firefighters, law enforcement, astronauts, and even mattress manufacturers use the fiber in different ways.
Life protection ballistic vests for the military continue as a staple, and in June, DuPont revealed that more than one million bullet resistant vests were made with Kevlar XP, launched in 2008.
Kevlar responded to market needs for multi-threat protection by introducing Kevlar AS450X multi-threat protection, against bullets, knives and blunt trauma, Brooks said. There’s also Kevlar XP™ S104, which is water repellant and provides enhanced bullet resistance for hot and humid climates. Both were launched in 2013.
DuPont also invested $500 million in the Kevlar production facility in Cooper River, S.C., that was launched in 2011. “This provides additional capability to meet needs worldwide,” Brooks said.
“The customers really push us. They may come up with new ideas,” Brooks said. “We’re not just a fiber or a product provider. We really are solutions oriented.”
“Customers interact with us,” he said. “We love idea generation…it’s how we get these new ideas to push boundaries.”
Kevlar serves global customers and the company is always actively engaged with customers or potential customers, he said. From a planning perspective, the company is integrated as one DuPont.
As Kevlar celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2015, Brooks wants to see it be as successful in the next 50 years.
DuPont Protection Technologies is part of
E.I. DuPont de Nemours [DD].